


sixty weeks since I saw vienna

by WreakingHavok



Category: SMPLive, Wilbur Soot - Fandom
Genre: Based off of his player videos, Gen, No Major Character Death, Sky God Wilbur, Sky Gods AU, Wilbur Soot Cinematic Universe - Freeform, i made a whole au for this I need help, plus the water and lava rising ones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25063159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/pseuds/WreakingHavok
Summary: The sky gods, who jump from world to world and burn them in their wake. The sky gods, once mortals confined to a life of endless death and existence that can’t always be called living. The sky gods, now free.Wilbur can barely breathe through the searing heat.It would be so nice to be free.~In which Wilbur Soot becomes a sky god.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 172





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FizzyOrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FizzyOrange/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Dark World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24922456) by Anonymous. 



> Hello! I want to preface this by saying salinesolution posted a work similar in concept to this as I was constructing the idea, and I promise I did not steal the concept or any content from them.
> 
> This work will not have graphic violence, no violence between friends, and no major character deaths. There will be dark themes, due to the nature of the world I’ve made, however if anything I write is over the line, please let me know.

Wilbur’s not crying.

He’s not choking on his own breath, on sobs as they tear, ever so cliche, from his throat. He’s not choking on soot and ash and heat, not swallowing buckets of fire. 

( _Wilbur Soot_ , Josh laughs, swiping away the grime and pain of the past three weeks with a lazy wave. _I’ll call you Wilbur Soot - it just fits you_.)

His platform creaks, and it’s not enough warning. He gives another desperate shout as one of the support pillars lists, almost sending him stumbling over the edge. He is grateful for the roar of the lava that drowns it out.

From a few, horribly distant feet away and much higher up, Schlatt starts to laugh.

“Look at you!” Schlatt says, loud and angry. “Big man, head honcho Wilbur! What should we do now, huh? What’s your grand idea?”

Wilbur inhales the pumice in the air, coughs it back out in a cloud of dust. The smoke gathers painfully in his eyes, stinging them and sending his vision blurry. 

Wilbur’s not crying. He hastily scrubs at his face, pulling his dirty sweater over his mouth to try and breathe. It barely works. “This is my fault?” he shouts back, as well as he’s able. “You’re the one who refused to cooperate! You’re the one who -“

“Shut up!” Schlatt yells. “There you go again, it’s never your fault, is it? You never do anything wrong -”

“You’re the one,” Wilbur interrupts, “who made me risk my life again, and again, do you remember when I almost drowned, trying to save you, do you remember the number of explosions I took to the face?”

“We were happy!” Schlatt roars, whirling back to lean over the edge. His cheeks are spotted with ash, precious jacket practically ripped to shreds, and Wilbur is shocked to see tears tracking their way down his face. “We were safe, we had a home, a community, but you, you, _you_ ,” Schlatt laughs, “decided it just wasn’t enough! I never wanted this, I did nothing but help you, I put everything on the line for you and we lost - you lost - and you blame me?” 

Wilbur’s not crying. He’s not choking on strangled sobs. He’s not weakening with each breath of smoke he takes, not standing on a doomed platform with lava swirling two feet below.

And while he’s lying, sure. It’s all his fault, too.

“I do,” and Wilbur’s never been so cripplingly afraid and angry before, “look at what you’ve done to me! This platform won’t last, you know it!” 

The memory of Schlatt’s final betrayal rubs his wrists raw, digs into his ribs, staggers him off guard every time he closes his eyes. 

( _I need a little more iron_ , Schlatt says through a grin, blinding Wilbur to the clench of his jaw behind it. _Just let me go back for a little more iron_.)

Schlatt hauls his lopsided bucket into view, hastily forged but still effective. The metal is no doubt hot on his skin, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. “Try’n get up here again, and I’ll -”

“You’ll what?” Wilbur laughs - Schlatt flinches back and drops the bucket. It clangs on the stone of his stone shelter, his stolen fortress, _Wilbur’s_ fortress. “You’ll shove me into the lava yourself? You’ve done everything short of that already.”

Schlatt gapes, shifts, the anger in his eyes burning down to a fizzing, uncertain spark. Maybe, Wilbur thinks, he realizes that this is the one. This is the final slip up. This was Wilbur’s last chance. 

( _This was the window of opportunity. You know what you did_.)

Maybe Schlatt feels guilty, now. Maybe that same loyalty and desperation that stuck him to Wilbur’s side for this long is rearing its head one final time. Maybe he feels a little bit of regret. It doesn’t matter, in the end.

It’s far too late for Wilbur to feel anything other than overwhelmingly hot. 

Noise blares through the sky, a siren, a wail. It crashes into Wilbur’s ears and through the roof of Schlatt’s fortress, sending both of them to the ground. Despite the instinctive way his heart beats faster, Wilbur’s almost relieved to hear it.

“Sky god,” he rasps, spitting his last words to the uncaring blue. “I know you’re there. I know you’re there!”

No answer, not now, not ever. But Wilbur knows Josh is watching. 

“I know you can hear me,” Wilbur says, Schlatt staring down at him with wide, horrified eyes. “I know it’s time. Do it,” he yells, and turns a fanged smile on Schlatt. “Rain fire from the sky! Take me out! All at once, come on!” 

“Stop!” Schlatt knows what he’s doing. “Stop, Wilbur, I’m -”

He’s what? He’s sorry? He should be. 

“If I have to go, take him with me!” Wilbur cackles. His tears evaporate from his burning cheeks. Lava laps at the floor. “What’s the point of it, anyway? What’s the point? Maybe we’ll go together again!” He opens his arms wide, relishing in the fear on Schlatt’s face. “Wouldn’t you like to stab me in the back, one more time? Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Schlatt is blanching, hands gripping unyeilding stone. “Shut up!” 

“Sky god,” and Wilbur’s screaming now, “oh, all powerful sky god -”

And the sky disappears. 

And the sky is on fire.

And the sky _is_ fire.

Falling, inch by agonizing inch, a wall of magma covers every visible corner of the heavens. Wilbur gapes up at it. 

It’s so hot. 

“No!” Schlatt cries, scrambling away from the edge. “Wilbur, Wilbur, tell it to stop!” 

Always a coward, Schlatt was. Always asking Wilbur to save him.

Wilbur sits down. The lava on the ground has stopped rising - it’s all up to the sheet of lava descending from above with increasing rapidity. He smiles.

“You’ll be safe up there, won’t you?” he murmurs. His prior rage smoulders into a pain just behind his eyes. “I built it to be safe. We were going to be safe.”

Schlatt is back to being angry, whatever remorse he may have had shattered over the floor like shards of glass. “Fine,” he says, “fine! You give up, you give up on yourself like you always gave up on me, I’m not going to take this -”

He vanishes from view. 

Wilbur knows he won’t see him again. 

The lava drips down, a sizzling lump landing close to his arm. Wilbur stares numbly at it, still hiccuping from his bout of sobbing, and wonders where the gods will send him this time. 

( _My name is Niki_ , the sky god soothes. _Do not worry. You’re in my world, now. Just follow the rules, and you’re free to stay_.)

Maybe he won’t respawn in the station. Maybe no one will want him. What would it be like, existing forever in the void? Would it be anything like the life of the sky gods?

( _I’m Josh_ , thunders a voice in his head like bold, impact text. Schlatt shudders beside him. _Welcome to the world - feel free to take a good, long look at the sea level_.)

The sky gods, who jump from world to world and burn them in their wake. The sky gods, once mortals confined to a life of endless death and existence that can’t always be called living. The sky gods, now free.

Wilbur can barely breathe through the searing heat. 

It would be so nice to be free. Really, he thinks, watching the magma drape itself over Schlatt’s tower, really truly free. 

True freedom. 

He closes his eyes.

And it’s funny, but even with the lava centimeters from his head, he doesn’t feel anything but cold.


	2. the roads are my home

He opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a cloud of his own breath.

Around him is a haze of blue, bright sun directly overhead, blinding to look at. Below him is rock, speckled black and white and grey. A meter or two away from his feet, the rock drops off into the same empty, blue void.

He’s struck with a gasping fear when he realizes that, freezing in place. Is there anything holding this rock up? Will it fall in mere seconds? Will it never fall? What are the rules of this world? 

( _Just wait_ , an invisible Josh says to an invisible audience. _I promise you, he’s perfect_.)

Perhaps there are no rules. Perhaps the rules change by the minute. Perhaps he’s already broken all of them, and the rock will swallow him whole, or all the oxygen will turn to liquid nitrogen, or the sky gods -

Wilbur breathes as quietly as he can, legs trembling. He doesn’t know how he knows all this. Sky gods, rules, humans -

Humans. Human. That’s what he is.

He’s human. 

This world he is in, it was created by a sky god. This sky god controls the rules of physics, the laws of biology, the definitions of life and death. This sky god controls the fate of humanity - the unlucky people who inhabit their creation.

This world is one of many. This sky god is one of many. And Wilbur is human - one of many.

It is his job to live, to suffer, to do what the sky god wants, to die how the sky god wants. Rinse and repeat, wander through the station and board another train, spawn again in a new world with a new sky god. Such is the cycle of existence.

Wilbur knows he has lived this way for longer than his physical appearance would suggest. Wilbur knows he is so very tired of existing like this. Wilbur knows he would do anything to finally be free.

Trembling, he drops to one knee and braces his hands on the cold stone, mind whirling with things he knows and nothing he remembers. 

Who is he? Where did he come from? Is he alone? Has he always been alone? Why is he here? 

Why is he here?

(Somewhere above him, Josh blinks twice, not even needing to raise a hand. Somewhere above him, the Council watches.)

Wilbur gasps, eyes flying open - something heavy lodges itself in his head. 

Wood. Oak boards. Wilbur reaches up to his hair (it’s long enough to fall down over his eyes, it’s curly, it’s brown, he could laugh with the realization, he has brown hair) to find nothing.

Nothing physical. But the visual of wood is there, the knowledge of wood is there; it’s such a vivid idea that he could reach up and pull it from his mind, he could imagine the planks nailed to the rock below him -

Stretching out another five meters from the rock is a similarly sized section of boards. Wilbur carefully struggles to his feet, staring at it in awe. 

When he puts his weight on them, they do not fall. They don’t even creak. He laughs, the sound swallowed instantly by the sky around him. 

“Good,” he breathes, words misting in the cold air. Now he has a ten by five meter platform to waste away on.

Before he can think of anything else, it happens again. The sensation of a painless blow to the head coupled with a visual - bright blue boots made of something almost clear and extremely solid. Armor. Diamonds. The words mean nothing and everything to him.

Screwing up his nose, he tries the same thing he had with the planks. When he looks down, his feet are no longer bare. The boots, despite being made of a solid gemstone, bend with his ankle and stay firmly attached to his skin. 

They look nice. Wilbur finds himself smiling. 

The next item comes exactly thirty seconds later. Wilbur visualizes it into his hand - his open palm glitters with shards of a material he knows only as “prismarine.” 

He doesn’t have any use for shiny rocks. Cautiously, he extends his hand out over the void of the sky. Nothing stops him. He’s free to free-fall anytime he wants. With a flick of his wrist, he dumps the shards into the void. They catch the sun all the way down until he can’t see them anymore. 

And then, suddenly, he starts to wonder if he shouldn’t have done that. Were those important? Were they the key to his survival, his safety? 

He takes a deep breath. No use panicking. He’ll just have to be more careful - he will be more careful.

Will. Wilbur. His name screeches back into his head along with another stack of planks. Spruce. 

Wilbur plants them down opposite the oak, struggles to the ground on shaking legs, and takes a moment to breathe. It’s cold, up here. The horizon is a beautiful painting of blue. Wilbur holds his head in his hands and closes his eyes. 

Wilbur. Wilbur…Wilbur Soot. Something sparks in his chest with the memory, and he follows it, chases it, trying to see anything else he can in its fading light. 

There is nothing there. Whatever happened to his memory, whatever sky god blocked it away, it did a thorough job. 

There’s the possibility that he never had a memory, or a past. That there is nothing to remember. He doesn’t like that thought.

A shiver of a breeze runs through his hair; he reaches out, wraps shaking fingers around something small and fragile.

When he opens his eyes, he holds a flower. A daisy. It’s barely as big as his hand, and the roots shake and shiver in the wind. 

It’s beautiful.

And Wilbur resolves not to think about the void of his memory that mirror the world he finds himself in. Right now, he’s holding a daisy. Right now, he’s breathing - he’s alive on this rock in the middle of the sky, and this daisy depends on him.

Flower pot, he thinks, he prays. Dirt. Water Something. 

So, naturally, the next item the sky gods give him is a fence gate.

~

He falls before the day is even over. 

A new section of jungle wood patio stretches around him, fifteen meters by fifteen meters of solid wood platform. There’s now enough room to comfortably pace in circles without fear. 

He has a furnace but no fuel - no food, either, but he can worry about that tomorrow. The daisy rests wearily in the button hole of his shirt. It looks a little faded. He’s getting worried. 

He’s used to the feeling of items arriving, by now. In fact, he almost missed the tool - a pickaxe made of shining gold. It resides in his head, safely stored away.

A synapse over resides a sapling. He refuses to bring it to life just to kill it. He’ll hold it safely in incorporeality until he gets something to plant it in. 

A garden. He almost laughs. A garden, all the way up here, where it doesn’t rain and there’s barely enough oxygen to support him. A garden - wouldn’t that be nice?

He kicks his legs out over the void, perched on the fence gate tacked onto the front. It’s the mast on his immovable airship, and he is the figurehead. Just as wooden, just as bound, just -

And it’s then that the latch finally gives way under his weight. 

The gate swings open into the sky, and he loses his grip on the planks, and before he can blink he’s falling. His stomach erupts into his throat, gravity drags him down faster than he can register, the platform becomes small becomes a speck becomes nothing in his blurring vision -

Dying is not new to him. He remembers this much.

He screams anyway.

~

It’s a long way down.

~

( _Boring,_ Josh laughs, snapping his fingers. _Do a flip, next time._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur doesn’t die I swear he’s just over dramatic and fell I swear please please he doesn’t die


End file.
